


letters, summer 1976

by templeg



Series: we held onto hope (of better days coming) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Letters, M/M, MWPP Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2299061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeg/pseuds/templeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An epistolary romance (of sorts) between Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, taking place in the summer of 1976.</p>
            </blockquote>





	letters, summer 1976

__2 nd_August, 1976. Remus Lupin to Sirius Black._

_12 Grimmauld Place,_

_Borough of Islington,_

_London_

_25 Kettering Road,_

_Market Harborough,_

_Leicestershire_

 

Pads,

How is your summer going? There, I said it. I said it, because if I made the effort to start this letter any other way I would only give myself a hernia and make many heavy-handed allusions to it and you would make fun of me anyway, because I am set in my habits and I can’t help that my mother raised me to be polite, so I might as well just ask. And you will mock me for it, and the world will continue to turn.

This summer doesn’t feel quite like any other summer, actually, which is why I must cling to what vestiges of normalcy I can.  I suppose it would be accurate to say that I usually miss you during the summer, a bit. Don’t let it go to your head. But this year I miss you to the extent that it is distracting me from my summer reading, which is unfair of you because you do very little besides distract me from my reading every other month of the year. I ask you, Sirius Black, why do you insist on so monopolising my time even when you’re not around?

I wish you were around. At least then I could get sick of you dropping ice cubes down the back of my neck and go read in the linen closet. I tried reading in there anyway, but it’s just not the same without you outside trying to curse the door off.

Basically, I wish you were around so that I could get sick of you, and isn’t that romantic.

That’s not really true. I never really get sick of you, just the ice cubes. This is the most contradictory and rambling letter in the history of the human race. Every classic author I have ever read is looking down on me and tutting, and it is all the fault of one M’sieur something-or-other, I forget his name, something pretentious and noble and Latin. 

Incidentally, you couldn’t have had a name that’s easier to murmur in intimate moments? Something like Julian, or Fabio? Most inconsiderate of you.

Moony

 

_3 rd August, 1976. Sirius Black to Remus Lupin._

_25 Kettering Road_

_Market Harborough_

_Leicestershire_

_12 Grimmauld Place_

_Islington_

_London_

 

My one and only Moonbeam,

My summer is going smashingly i.e. a great many things are being smashed, usually around thirty seconds after I enter a room. Kreacher has started hiding the china vases. I have started bewitching them with Bouncing Charms. So basically my mother is the same ray of sunshine as ever, and my intellect is only slightly the worse for wear for having a Ming vase rebound off the wall and then my skull this morning at breakfast.

Please do not herniate yourself. If you must herniate yourself on my behalf I would prefer that it be in the attempt of something highly athletic and bendy har har, you see where I am going with this. And actually I won’t mock you for it. I will mock you for using words like ‘normalcy’ in the summer months when you are not trying to impress Minnie and have no reason to do so other than the fact that raiding the dictionary makes your manhood quiver and throb or whatever it is they say in those Muggle romance novels James claims are his mother’s (and how very forgetful she must be to mysteriously leave them in James’s trunk year after year but that is another subject for another, disturbing day).

GOOD. Something needs to distract you, it might as well be me, it is a public service. REMUS LUPIN, you are a GROWING BOY, you ought to be FROLICKING and making the most of your youth which lets face it, you never really had anyway because you have been eighty-five since the moment of your birth but anyway it’s SUMMERTIME you should be doing something that gets you all sweaty and tousled. I have a few suggestions but sadly they all involve me.

I read somewhere that ice cubes are very erotic, possibly in one of ‘’’Mrs’’’ Potter’s romance novels. Don’t ask me how I’m sure it was invented by boring heterosexuals who need exciting physical sensations such as frostbite to spice up their sex lives. Clearly I was just trying to pull your metaphorical pigtails and you didn’t realise because you are Remus Lupin and didn’t notice that battling a geranium on your behalf might indicate my affection for you.

Oh this is a romance now is it?? I must say this is all moving very fast. After all we’ve only known each other six years. I feel the oppressive iron cuffs of monogamy bearing down on me and they’re not nearly as sexy as they sound.

All you just did was confirm that you do in fact say my name when you wank in the shower so very well done on that count. And who are you to talk when it comes to ridiculous names Mr Werewolf McWerewolfson?

Fabio

 

 

_5 th August, 1976. Remus Lupin to Sirius Black._

_12 Grimmauld Place,_

_Borough of Islington,_

_London_

_25 Kettering Road,_

_Market Harborough,_

_Leicestershire_

Pads,

You are doing the art history world a service, though I’m sure that wasn’t your intent. Still, future generations will thank you. Except regarding the ones with curses on them. Which is probably somewhere between most and all of them, now I think about it.

That levity was rather forced, I know, but I also know that if I ask the obvious you will deflect in a manner resembling, say, someone’s cranium deflecting an enchanted Ming vase. I dread to think which parts of your intellect were the casualties. Probably that small and underused part that houses your table manners.

Sirius, tell me something. When you look at me, in all my be-cardiganed glory, are the adjectives that come to mind really ‘athletic’ and ‘bendy’? If so, that vase did no damage that wasn’t already deeply instilled.

Herniate is not a word. I know that you know that, and that you doubtless did it for the express purpose of goading me, and yet I am compelled to point it out. The Moony is a predictable beast, after all.

I am very sorry if my relationship with the dictionary makes you jealous, but I can’t help but feel that you might be being the tiniest bit hypocritical, given how much time you spend quite literally fondling your hell beast of a motorbike. Furthermore, my manhood does not quiver, neither does it throb. If you wish to ever verify this fact for yourself, you will kindly stop casting such aspersions.

That is a sentence I can’t quite believe I just wrote. Must be the heat.  I’m very tempted to cross it out, but I’m not going to. We’re (nearly) adults, I can say the word sex out loud without blushing. Or write it down, at least. And speaking of bizarre sexual fetishes, I feel compelled to point out that if I’m eighty-five you are…well, you know with an eighty-five-year-old. So you can hardly complain if I make occasional eyes at my dictionary.

I’m sorry, you’re so right. I forgot all about the chapter of Pride and Prejudice where Mr Darcy heroically saves Elizabeth from an angry geranium.

Yes, it is. Sorry. Except not really in fact all that sorry at all.

Julian

P.S. I have to ask, even though I know you will deflect. Are you alright? It doesn’t sound like you’re having the most restful summer.

 

 

_8th August, 1976. Sirius Black to Remus Lupin._

_25 Kettering Road_

_Market Harborough_

_Leicestershire_

_12 Grimmauld Place_

_Islington_

_London_

The very creamiest of Moonpies

I do not lack table manners. What I have is a carefully cultivated set of anti-table manners. You should know the difference being so obsessed with art history and all. It is post-modern food consumption, or in my case inhalation.

Moony my Moony I see so very many things when I look at you and so few of them are wholesome enough to put to paper. The rest are far too close to the sort of things Prongs says about Evans for my punk rock reputation to allow to be expressed so we’ll leave those unsaid as well. I’m sure your imagination can fill in the gaps you being so well-read and intelligent and all. Even if you are about as observant as Peter’s pet rock when it comes to taking hints. FOR GOODNESS SAKE MOONY I SHOWED YOU MY HEROIC SCARS. I GAVE YOU MR FUZZY. WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED?

Lucky for you I appreciate your predictability, though I appreciate your unpredictability still more. That paragraph for example was a welcome surprise and not just because reading it at breakfast caused me to pour a whole cup of scalding-hot Darjeeling into Regulus’s lap. I don’t know what he was screeching about it’s not like he’ll ever have an opportunity to use any of the parts I may have damaged. Anyway enough talk of my brother’s less-than-manly manhood it’s making me queasy. Back to yours.

I would like to pledge my eternal love to the heat for bringing out this as-yet-unglimpsed side of our Moony and I can only lament the fact that this wild, unfettered sex BEAST of a Moony should materialise when we’re on opposite sides of the country, or so it feels like. Clearly there is a god and he delights in my misery. Or maybe just delights in the sound of me relieving stress the old-fashioned British way the dirty old man. This is my subtle way of letting you know that your name has been heard somewhat in the shower around here of late too (or it would be if we had anything as vulgar as a shower). Who says romance is dead.

Excuse me a minute I think I hear the howls of a banshee from below.

Sorry this letter is a little smudged around the edges. Dear old mum was trying to burn my leather jacket, possibly she was trying to sacrifice me to the elder gods or something I’m not really sure but long story short my fingers are burnt and ash is very difficult to get off.  I would write it out again but it’s difficult to write with burnt fingers and besides I only like to have cramp in my wrist for one reason eh eh geddit I’m sure you do.

The jacket is fine don’t worry, you can stop rending your garments and weeping. Sirius Black, Punk Rock God Extraordinaire, lives to ride another day.

I love it when you get all bossy with me.

Your Paddling pool.

 

P.S. Fine.

 

_10 th August, 1976. Remus Lupin to Sirius Black._

_12 Grimmauld Place,_

_Borough of Islington,_

_London_

_25 Kettering Road,_

_Market Harborough,_

_Leicestershire_

Pads,

I’ll do my best to remember next time I’m being showered with bits of your Yorkshire pudding that I suffer in the name of art. I suppose it would be déclassé of me to put up a Shield Charm.

I miss your Yorkshire pudding bits, and that isn’t even a euphemism. To what lows have I sunk at your behest, Sirius Black? I don’t want you to get the impression that I sit around gazing at a photo of your delightful face all day, or that I cross off the days until next we meet on my calendar. Things are just extremely quiet around here, and as much as I appreciate the theory of ‘quiet’, especially when I’m sharing a dorm with three wildebeest in boyish form, in practice it’s starting to grate on my nerves. Clearly my entire personality is a lie and I should change my name and start over. Suggestions welcome.

No, I think I’d like some examples, actually. If James can spend half his life waxing rhapsodic about a girl whose most amorous interaction with him to date was a request to pass the toast rack, you can summon up a bit of romance for me without your, and please imagine my most sarcastic tone of voice here, ‘punk rock’ (ahem) ‘reputation’ (ahem) suffering any ruinous damage.

Maybe if getting into a punch-up with a geranium differed more from your usual conduct I might have seen it for the sweeping romantic gesture it obviously was. See also: presenting me with objects you found in bushes.

In that case, maybe I shouldn’t tell you how I was thinking about that third-floor broom closet the other day, the one by the statue of Boric the Befuddled, and how it might be big enough to attempt certain things we haven’t had opportunity to do in the dorm. We wouldn’t want my unpredictability to become predictable.

I just read over that paragraph, and I have apparently found a way to make dirty talk stodgy. I am very sorry that you are dating a bread pudding but you seem to be into that sort of thing so who am I to judge. Yes, I just used the word ‘dating’. One of us had to, before the euphemisms spiraled into total incomprehensibility. I can say it without bursting into flames, and so can you.

It’s not the jacket I’m worried about.

Moony

P.S. I don’t believe you. I feel useless, I wish I could get you away from there. I’d attempt a daring rescue mission but I’m sure the house is imbued with anti-werewolf curses and I’d rather not burst into flames or contract spattergroit.

 

_15 th August 1976, Remus Lupin to Sirius Black_

_12 Grimmauld Place,_

_Borough of Islington,_

_London_

_25 Kettering Road,_

_Market Harborough,_

_Leicestershire_

Sirius,

If you’re ignoring me because I kept prying I’m sorry, but I hope you are because my other theories involve incapacitating injuries rendering you incapable of writing or imprisonment without access to writing materials or other things that I’d rather not think about.

Alternatively, you’re ignoring me because my attempts at dirty talk were so laughable that your balls actually shrivelled and retracted themselves into your body. If so, I am once again sorry and promise to do everything in my power to coax them out again. This is my favourite option.

Please let me know if you’re okay.

Moony

 

_17 th August 1976, Remus Lupin to Sirius Black_

_12 Grimmauld Place,_

_Borough of Islington,_

_London_

_25 Kettering Road,_

_Market Harborough,_

_Leicestershire_

Sirius?

R. 

 

_18 th August 1976, James Potter to Remus Lupin_

_25 Kettering Road,_

_Market Harborough_

_Leicestershire_

_Hareston Manor,_

_Brixton_

_Plymouth_

Moony,

Padfoot is here with me and Pete. He showed up in the middle of the night on Saturday, the melodramatic bastard, and I won’t lie to you, he didn’t look great. He won’t tell me what exactly happened but I doubt he’s going back to Grimmauld Place any time soon. Frankly I hope he never has to. In any case I doubt Mum would let him, she healed him up and she won’t stop bringing him pie no matter how he begs. I expect he’ll write you from here soon. I don’t know what the evil sods did to him, I’m just glad he’s out of there.

Ask your parents if you can come stay with us, I expect the sight of you in a nurse’s uniform would do him some good. The rest of us will just have to endure it, I expect we can find a way to blind ourselves temporarily.

Prongs

 

 

_20 th August 1976, Sirius Black to Remus Lupin_

_25 Kettering Road_

_Market Harborough_

_Leicestershire_

_Drowning in Books_

_Hareston Manor_

_Brixton_

_Plymouth_

Moonypants,

So as you may have heard there’s been a slight change of location. It was all very dramatic, naturally I had to time my arrival perfectly and appear in the midst of a howling thunderstorm because I have to make people swoon somehow. Took some doing to get my entrance to coincide with a bolt of dramatically convenient lightning but we got there in the end.

I hope you didn’t pine too much in my absence. Anyway you’ll be glad to hear not only am I in one piece I’ve acquired some very dashing (if I do say so myself) scars that I’m sure you will have a whale of a time getting to know eh eh wot wot. I’m on my way to catching up with you in the sexy scar department, you’ll have to think of a new way to appear enigmatic and mysterious instead of the fusty old grandfather that we all know you secretly are.  May I suggest some sort of facial piercing? Or a piercing anywhere really, I’m not picky. Alternatively you could get a tattoo. It could say ‘Property of Padfoot’.

Excellent idea actually. You should do that.

I’ve been practically confined to my bedroom for DAYS now like some sort of Victorian invalid, there is absolutely nothing the matter with me but every time I set foot outside of my bed Mrs Potter manhandles me straight back in again. Don’t go getting too jealous now. I think she’d employ a Permanent Sticking Charm if she thought she could get away with it. She won’t stop bringing me improving novels and more and more pillows. Help me Moony, I can’t see daylight anymore and

Sorry about that, she came in with ‘just a little something for when you finish the others, dear’. This one is called Sense and Sensibility which sounds like exactly the kind of terminally boring thing you adore. Who besides your good self would read something with a title that amounts to ‘Sensibleness and Yet More Sensibleness’? I can’t put it down, and I mean that in the literal sense because there’s no more room on my duvet and anywhere I put it might cause my death by book landslide.

The only thing that can be done is for you to come and rescue me by nobly reading all of them yourself. Finally, a heroic quest perfectly suited to your skills.

Seriously, please come. I’m so desperate for your company I didn’t even make the usual pun.

Pads

 

_21 st August 1976, Remus Lupin to Sirius Black_

_Hareston Manor,_

_Brixton,_

_Plymouth_

_25 Kettering Road,_

_Market Harborough,_

_Leicestershire_

 

Sirius,

I’m too relieved to press. Thank god for the Potters. If it entertains you in your sickbed of no actual sickness to picture me staring wistfully out of windows at rainy landscapes, weeping over your letters and refusing all food until I am but a wan shade of my former masculinity, by all means, have at it. (Just keep it off the sheets, ha ha. Oh god, I apologise to epistolary romance, I think I killed it.)

Excuse me, but which of us transforms into a domesticated animal commonly associated with servitude? I think you will find that it is not I. When was the last time you saw a wolf wearing a collar with someone’s address on it? Although I wonder, if I got a tattoo would it show up on the wolf? I get all his injuries, it seems only fair that if I mutilate myself in the name of Sirius Black he should suffer as well.

You know, this is only leading me to the conclusion that you like being bossed around. Maybe I will get you a collar.

I’m not even going to engage with that paragraph, because if I start I will end up writing an entire essay on the literary merit of Sense and Sensibility and then quite frankly even I will have to make fun of myself.

Well, I suppose I can’t let all those books go to waste.

Remus

P.S. I'll see you on Saturday.

 

**Author's Note:**

> writing letters by sirius black, a simple guide by felix eldergrantaire:
> 
> step one- write letter  
> step two- remove as many commas as possible


End file.
